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Alarmed at the weapons activities of Aum Shinrikyo, the US Senate conducted an investigation into the cult. Their report published in October 1995 outlined Aumís intense interest in the work of Nikola Tesla. At the turn of this century, Tesla had conducted numerous experiments in the realm of advanced electromagnetic weapon systems. In 1896, he accidentally triggered an earthquake across a dozen New York city blocks. Such was the turmoil caused that local police stormed his lab. Realising what had occurred, the inventor hurriedly took a sledge hammer and smashed an offending oscillator to pieces. Later he remarked that the quake was caused "by a little piece of apparatus you could slip into your pocket."

The Senate report describes how representatives of Aum visited the New York based International Tesla Society (ITS) seeking access to Teslaís research papers. However, these had been confiscated by the US government in 1943 - the year Tesla died - and classified secret. They remain secret to this day. A spokesman for ITS told Senate investigators that Aumís interest focused on Teslaís experiments on "resonating frequencies" in connection with the artificial creation of earthquakes. Remarkably, the Senate report goes on to mention Teslaís claim that he could "split the world in two." This mind-boggling assertion is believed to have been reflected in the warning given by Russian Premier Nikita Krushchev in 1960. Krushchev referred to "Ö the advent of a new class of Soviet Superweapon, so powerful it could wipe out all life on earth." The comment, made at the height of the cold war, clearly did not refer to nuclear weapons - already an integral component of the feared Soviet arsenal.
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